Kathleen Kraemer
Editor-in-Chief
Last week, ESU students elected Andrew Kissling as their new Student Senate President. Kissling, who ran unopposed, joined Student Senate’s finance committee as a freshman. Now, as a sophomore, Kissling has moved up the ladder.
“[Running unopposed] was a little bit upsetting,” said Kissling, “but at the same time it makes it easier. Sometime in the future I would like to see more people run.”
Kissling is a Business Management major hailing from Conshohocken, Pa.
He served as the Chair of the Finance Committee for Senate this year and looks forward to serving as president.
“I think me and my committee really did something good this year,” said Kissling of his work with the Finance Committee. “We tried to make the budget process a little bit smoother and easier and make clubs really understand it more.”
“We started back in December with the orientations,” said Kissling. “Previously it was all just done in the second semester.”
“It gave us time to let clubs think about their budgets earlier. They submitted them earlier, they got them back earlier and now they can plan for next year.”
As President of Student Senate, Kissling hopes to help students and their voices have a larger reach.
“I’m not as outgoing as I could be sometimes, but I’m someone that you can approach,” he said. “I really like to hear what your issues are and what you would like to get done.”
Kissling plans to encourage collaboration between Senate and other organizations on campus.
“I really want to try to make better connections,” explained Kissling.
“We [Student Senate] can’t really do all these things by ourselves. It would be really good to have connections with athletics, academic departments, different clubs and all kinds of different organizations as well as he local community.”
Student involvement in the surrounding community is another area in which Kissling would like to invest time.
“It would be really good to get people more connected with the community and really be more proud of the community that their school is a part of,” he said.
Kissling wants to emphasize to students that they are in control of their time at ESU.
“Students should really know that they have the opportunity to mold their college experience the way they want it to be,” he said. “I think that students don’t realize how powerful a voice they really have. It’s all about making your experience great.”
Kissling expressed that he has a passion for serving others. He is an Eagle Scout and says he constantly looks for ways to help however he can.
“You get a lot more out of the work that you do when you know that you’re helping out other people,” said Kissling. “You passed a budget that helped a club to be successful, or you worked on fixing up tutoring so someone can go and pass a class.”
“Sometimes you don’t always see it,” he said, “but if you really take a step back and look, there’s a lot that you get done.”
Kissling says he looks forward to the 2016-2017 year and seeing all that can be accomplished at our university.
“I’m excited,” said Kissling. “Keisha has a lot of good ideas and experience already. I think she’ll bring a lot to the table. Most of our e-board is leaving as well as a handful of other seniors, so it’s going to be a big transition, but I think we have a lot of great new senators in there and we are in good hands.”
Email Kathleen at:
kkraemer2@live.esu.edu